Archive for May 2006

A couple of weeks ago, Strawberry Frog, working with MSN, launched Exposure, an innovative project for Sprite that slickly blends elements of social-networking (via MSN Spaces), user-generated content and documentary footage. We recently checked back in with the on-going effort and were pleased to find cool updated content, as promised.

At the heart of the campaign, and what makes it work so well, is the exposure offered to talented young people, which for now includes “Ballers” and “Urban Artists”. It’s a great example of a brand-constructed media channel, something we should expect to see a lot of brands experimenting with in the future.

This past weekend at the newly located (and still somewhat unfinished) KCDC Skate shop in Williamsburg, artists Travis Millard and Michael Sieben debuted work generated from a collaboration done through the postal system. The event was best said, interesting. The first 300 through the door got a pack of free stuff. The packaging was interesting and seemed good to share. Everything came in a standard shipping envelope (a nod to the process the artists used) and each was hand numbered. Back before the internet and cell phones made texting instant, there was a whole culture that used the postal system as a canvas for envelope art and interesting packaging. This brought back a bit of nostalgia for those days when I’d get envelopes covered in drawings from friends of mine. The exhibition is up till the middle of July and you can find out more information on the artists and the show here.

Most of the media attention on MySpace is devoted to pointing out the sinister side of the social networking phenomenon.
But there are a lot of things MySpace has done right in creating a compelling experience, and marketers-especially those trying to connect with young people- have plenty to learn.

More than just a social networking site of nearly 70 million users, MySpace is a personal branding tool. It’s a place where users can project themselves (or rather what they want other people to see about themselves) with ever-changing profiles, pictures and blogs– making MySpace the perfect site for marketers to look to for insights into the young consumer’s mindset.

There will be nearly as much action on the huge screen outside the stadium as on the court itself during this year’s Wimbledon Championship, as fans will be competing for VIP centre court seats.

Robinson’s, the official drink sponsor of Wmbledon, will be running a competition with mobile marketing agency Enpocket asking for people to submit their favourite Wimbledon moments. The stream of photos will be displayed at the entry gates for the tens of thousands of fans passing through the gates.

Jason Calacanis, CEO of blog network Weblogs.inc, has been wondering who the hell has been spending so much time contributing to Digg. Digg is a tech-news site where news is submitted by the people, voted on by the people and read by the people. There’s no human editor - just a clever set of algorithms to enhance the quality of the articles rising to the top.

Anmway, Calacanis spotted one user who had submitted 776 stories to Digg over the past 278 days and did some math:

That’s basically three stories every single day without a day off for almost a year. It has to take 15 minutes–on average–to find and publish a decent story to DIGG. So, this person has spent 194 hours on the site in less than a year. If you worked seven hours a day doing this as a day job this would be six weeks of full-time work. So, this person is spending around eight full-time weeks a year.

When he looked further he found that the top 15 Diggers had their own sites and they were digging a lot of their content.

But is this a good or bad thing? You’ll see in the comments section of Calacanis post that some Diggers think it’s a bad thing but it reminds us of a recent interview with Digg founder Kevin Rose (but we can’t remember where - blimmin podcasts, we expect). Rose suggested that in the future community-filtered news sites should be used by bloggers and publishers to submit their own content.

On Air is an awesome collection of the indents and promos that run between shows - sometimes promoting a feature on MTV, sometimes just running for the sake of it. The book comes with a DVD with a huge catalog of “left-field” short film art. One of the truly fascinating aspects of the book is the fact that it is truly international - taking the reader from country to country and continent to continent.

The book takes you through the thinking of each piece and there are essays by folk like Matt Hanson and and interviews with the likes of Brent Hansen, Creative top fella at MTV international.

On Air is an awesome collection of the indents and promos that run between shows - sometimes promoting a feature on MTV, sometimes just running for the sake of it. The book comes with a DVD with a huge catalog of “left-field” short film art. One of the truly fascinating aspects of the book is the fact that it is truly international - taking the reader from country to country and continent to continent.

The book takes you through the thinking of each piece and there are essays by folk like Matt Hanson and and interviews with the likes of Brent Hansen, Creative top fella at MTV international.

There’s a very detailed look at Scion’s marketing operations over on Automotive News. Lots of juicy facts and insights:

Scion research states that the average age of its drivers is 31, the youngest of any car brand in the United States. But Templin concedes that Scion also attracts its share of boomers and retirees who like the well-packaged, low-priced hatchbacks.

Not that Templin has a problem with that. He compares Scion to Red Bull, which means different things to different audiences. The cough-syrup-flavored beverage appeals to athletes who want quick carbohydrates, nightclubbers who mix it with vodka, and students who like the caffeine rush for studying. Because these groups likely will never encounter each other, it’s OK for all those groups to enjoy the product, Templin says.

With the launch of a new SoHo store, fashion.psfk profiles the Spanish brand Mango.

Hunting for decent retail space in the Big Apple can take years. Barcelona-based apparel chain Mango, knows that for sure. Finding the perfect gem to open its first flagship store in NYC was a laborious task. However, after some intense search and lots of patience, Mango just signed a lease for an 8,000-square-foot space at 561 Broadway in SoHo.

More Stories

ME Strauss provides some thorough thoughts on how to trend-spot as part of your job.What does it take to spot a trend before it takes root and actually happens?… Allowing that you have the prerequisite intelligence — we’re talking business acumen, common sense, and people smarts, not rocket science — the rest is a matter of doing the work and being open to what’s happening. Continue reading

What’s interesting is the questions posed by Ask (dabitch) - which reflect the concerns modern marketers have on the use of the medium over a relevant idea.dabitch: Personally, I have this nagging fear that when all the usual suspects of ambient channels start getting worn out - say street stencilling for example - it will just become another blip on the media landscape that the people ignore…. Somewhere I think ideas actually need to be stronger in ambient media channels than anywhere else, as not to tick people off.Chris Hunter: Yes, I do think they need to be stronger. Continue reading

A thought piece over at TBSA looks at how brands are associating themselves with change for positive effect:According to the HP website, this campaign is designed to “help customers capitalize on change.” HP wants show “change as a positive force.” Continue reading

. Nice sport by JR: Each week hundreds of kids practice their soccer skills in the vast field. Quite handy to have this soccer machine near by, in case one of them punts a ball into the Hudson. Continue reading

Confectionary brand Altoids ran a competition in 2005 to find a designer for a limited edition designed tin for the concept - curiously fussy…. Click the image to get a full description of the project and the artist’s inspiration. Continue reading

Warning: curl_setopt() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /nfs/c01/h12/mnt/45065/domains/www.marktd.com/html/wp-content/plugins/alakhnors-post-thumb/lib/post-thumb-functions.php on line 470

Warning: curl_setopt() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /nfs/c01/h12/mnt/45065/domains/www.marktd.com/html/wp-content/plugins/alakhnors-post-thumb/lib/post-thumb-functions.php on line 470

Accessibility

Sponsored Links

Browse by Date

Friends and Partners:

\

For advertising opportunities, sponsorship and consultancy requests please contact us using this form. For PR submissions, please email us at submit@psfk.com

All content is copyright their rightful owner. Feel free to publish extracts of PSFK-owned trend information found on our website, on the condition that PSFK is properly credited (and linked to) as the source, including our URL: www.psfk.com. Consult other content owners directly about republication of their content.